Bernard Knight - The Elixir of Death

They had left Exeter at dawn, the coroner forcing the pace in his anxiety to search for Hilda of Dawlish. They made an uncomfortable overnight stop in a mean alehouse near Luscombe, some distance beyond Totnes, where they slept rolled in their cloaks alongside the firepit in the only room. After another early start, they rode off into the cold, grey morning with its constant threat of snow, reaching Salcombe soon after noon.

John went straight to the inn where the ship-masters had said that Hilda had stayed, but learned nothing other than the fact that she had never returned there. The parish priest at Holy Trinity confirmed that she had joined a band of pilgrims going west, but had not been seen since then.

Before dusk, they arrived at Ringmore as weary as their horses, and once again a surprised bailiff resignedly provided food and shelter in the manor-house. He had had no further news since the two shipmen had visited him, there being no sign of the missing lady.

'I've been up to St Anne's Chapel several times,' said William Vado. 'But old Ivo de Brun has had no sight of her there — not that his sight is much use, poor fellow, but at least he would be able to tell if she had returned.'

'What about Bigbury village? Any news of her there?' demanded John.

The bailiff shook his head. 'I've not been that far, Crowner. My wife has been unwell with white-leg after the birth and I've not spent much time outside this bailey. Thankfully she's improving today, so if you want me to ride with you in the morning, I'll willingly come.'

Tired out, they sought their mattresses on the hall floor soon after a meal and a few jugs of ale and cider. In spite of his worries about his former lover — and Gwyn's gargantuan snores — de Wolfe was soon sound asleep. It seemed only a few minutes later that the cold light of dawn and the stirring of the manor servants jerked him awake.

'What's to be done today, Crowner?' asked the patient Gwyn, as they sat over bowls of pottage, which seemed to consist mainly of turnips and cabbage, with hunks of coarse rye bread to soak up the fluid.

'Follow the route she took again, I suppose,' grunted John. 'First check again at this damned chapel, then go down to this poxy village where she was last heard of.'

There was a pause as they scraped up the last of the soup with their wooden spoons, then Gwyn let out a breath of frustration that blew up the hairs on his straggling moustache.

'What in hell is going on with all this, Crowner?', he asked, dolefully.

De Wolfe shook his long head slowly from side to side. 'Gwyn, I wish to Christ I knew! So many deaths, bloody Moors, shipwreck, alchemists, crucifixions — and now a missing woman.'

Thomas de Peyne, sipping his ale as if it were hemlock, ventured into the conversation.

'Before we left Exeter, I took that piece of parchment up to Brother Rufus to see if he could make out any more words. He could not read the Turkish script, but confirmed what I said about the Greek and the symbols. It seemed to be some part of an alchemist's formula or notes, about some process to make the Elixir of Life.'

When they had eaten and had a final warm at the fire, they went out into the bailey, where William Vado had brought round their horses, ready fed, watered and saddled up. Together with the bailiff, they rode the short distance up to the crossroads. The tiny chapel looked forlorn in the morning mist, as a freezing fog was hovering over the countryside, with no sign of a sun to disperse it. Clouds of vapour hung menacingly over the clumps of trees, and even the birds seemed too depressed to twitter. The coroner reined in level with the small porch.

'We'd best ask that old fellow if he's seen anyone about here lately,' he rasped, his breath steaming in the cold air. 'Thomas, you are nearest to the ground on that overgrown goat you ride! See if he's in there.'

The clerk slid inexpertly from his saddle and trudged across to the door, which was partly open. Crossing himself as he approached this very modest House of God, he called out to the custodian, who lived in a lean-to shack attached to the side of the chapel. Getting no reply, he went inside, and the waiting coroner idly watched the doorway for the appearance of Ivo de Brun. Instead, he heard a piercing shriek which he thought belonged to a woman until he realised it had been made by Thomas de Peyne, who reappeared as if on a spring, his face as white as chalk.

'What the hell's the matter with you?' roared Gwyn, leaping off his mare and advancing on Thomas, ferocity masking his concern for the little clerk. John de Wolfe was but a yard behind him, and together they pushed past the priest and rushed into the small building.

'God's teeth, what's happened here?' shouted de Wolfe, as Gwyn and William Vado crowded alongside him. On the floor in the middle of the nave lay the crumpled body of the custodian. He was face down, but was easily recognisable by the bandiness of his bare legs, exposed below his worn cassock, which was rumpled up almost to his waist. The old man's arms were outstretched, as if in a final agonised supplication towards the little altar. He was ominously still, and even more ominous was the spreading patch of dark blood which had soaked into the earthen floor on either side of his body.

Gwyn knelt at his head and lifted it with a gentleness that was at odds with his burly, rough appearance. 'He's dead, poor old fellow. But look at his eyes!'

With Thomas hovering with an ashen face near the door, John and Vado moved around to crouch with the Cornishman and stare in horror at the face of the chapel's guardian. The nose and one cheek were flattened and pale from contact with the ground, the rest having the purple hue of death staining. But what was most shocking was his eyes — rather than showing the former milkiness of his cataracts, they revealed bloody pits where they had been gouged out, the remains hanging down his face.

'Did that kill him?' asked the bailiff in a voice hushed with dismay.

For answer, Gwyn heaved the body over on to its back, displaying a wide area of blood-soaked clothing covering the entire belly and chest. Pulling aside the brown woollen robe, the typical garb of clerks in the lower religious orders, he exposed the now familiar wide stab wounds, four in number, scattered over the heart and entrails.

'The same bastards again!' snarled the coroner, filled with anger at the ruthless killers who could do this to an almost blind and defenceless old man.

Thomas came a little nearer, one hand over his mouth holding back his nausea, the other twitching repeated signs of the Cross at this further sacrilege of a holy place. Then something caught his eye which so surprised him that he forgot his sickness. He moved a few paces and bent to pick something from the floor.

'Crowner, look at this!' he said tremulously, holding out his hand to show what was coiled in his palm. Rather impatiently diverted from studying the wounds on the old man, de Wolfe glanced at it and his brows furrowed.

'A necklace? No, it's a string of paternoster beads. So what? This is a chapel — any pilgrim could have dropped them.'

Thomas shook his head, frightened but determined. 'Not any pilgrim, sir! These belong to your wife. I'd know them anywhere!'

'My wife's!' roared John de Wolfe. 'Let me see it!'

He rose from the side of the corpse and snatched the rosary from Thomas's hand.

'How do you know it belongs to her? How can it be, for according to Mary she's with her brother in Revelstoke!' He looked at the long line of amber beads, threaded on to plaited horsehair.

'It is hers, sire!' repeated the clerk, in desperate agitation. 'I have seen her use it in the cathedral many times. She has five sets of ten beads, separated by knots. See!' He pointed to the sequence of amber globes. 'That is the new way of counting one's prayers, instead of a hundred and fifty single counts. Three are counted for each bead, in sets of ten.'